Little Bookworms is an online children’s bookstore offering a curated collection of high-quality books selected by a literacy professional and mom of two little bookworms.
R.E.A.D.
Wondering how to create a thoughtful and purposeful collection of children’s books? Whether it’s for your child, family, classroom, or community group, consider the R.E.A.D. criteria:
Relevant
Relevance allows readers to make connections to the book. Making connections is an important part of learning, whether we’re learning to read or reading to learn. Books may be relevant on an individual level to a personal interest or a lived experience. In the classroom, books may be relevant to a learning goal or curriculum topic.
Engaging
If a book is not able to hold our attention and interest, we’re not getting anything out of it. Examples of engaging features for young readers include lyrical text, humour, and visually appealing pictures. Photographs, particularly of people, are especially engaging for babies and toddlers.
Appropriate
Books for young readers of course need to be age-appropriate in terms of content, but the complexity & length also need to be appropriate for individual reading ability and attention span. A book that is too complex will be frustrating, and a book that is overly simplistic will be boring.
Diverse
Humans come in all shapes, sizes, colours, genders, family dynamics, abilities, etc., and every collection of children’s books should reflect this diversity. All children should be able to see characters who look like them, and all children benefit from being exposed to a variety of characters with diverse traits and appearances.